Fairs' Point by Melissa Scott Page B

thieves’ restraint: they’d grabbed the silver, and left the copper behind. If they were that disciplined, Rathe thought, they were going to be hard to catch, particularly since they weren’t sticking to any one technique. Some of the women had lost coin, some had lost their entire purse, sliced neatly from its strings without so much as a tug, so that they’d only noticed it missing when they went to pay for a cup of wine, and found it gone.
    He heard footsteps on the stairs, and looked up, unsurprised to see Trijn scowling at him.
    “You’ve read it, then? Good. I’d like a word with you.”
    “ Of course.” Rathe followed her into her workroom, and settled himself at her gesture on the visitor’s chair. “It’s an odd business.”
    Trijn nodded, busy refilling her pipe. “It is that.”
    “ They haven’t taken a single pickpocket?”
    “ So Claes says.”
    Rathe eyed her warily, wondering exactly what she was tr ying to imply. “It’s odd they’re going for strongboxes, too.”
    “ A bit.” Trijn sucked noisily on her pipe, then released a cloud of smoke and a satisfied sigh. “And before you ask, I think Guillen Claes is an honest man, and, more to the point, not such a fool as to take fees that would lower his standing with the businesswomen of his district. There are others at Fairs’ Point, however…”
    “ Voillemin,” Rathe said.
    “ I didn’t say it, and I can’t say it.”
    But we both know who you mean . Rathe nodded. “Understood, Chief.”
    “ But before I say there’s nothing in it for us to worry about, I want you to have a chat with your friends the Quentiers. Since you’re close enough to be called to their councils.”
    Rathe sighed. “That’s a somewhat different matter. There was a daughter of the family, with the worst possible stars for a pickpocket and no taste for the trade. I was one of three or four who spoke for her.”
    “ And you’re still speaking for her,” Trijn said.
    “ Only to certify she’s still no pickpocket.”
    “ What does she do?”
    Rathe winced. “She’s a dog trainer. Maewes DeVoss’s assistant.”
    “ Is she, now?” Trijn’s eyes brightened, and Rathe shook his head.
    “ She’s an honest woman—they both are, she and DeVoss.”
    “ I know DeVoss.” Trijn shook her head. “All right, we’ll leave that, then. But I do want you to talk to the Quentiers. Unofficially, of course.”
    Not that there was anything official that he could say, nor the slightest chance that any of the Quentiers would be rece ptive to an official approach. And if there was anything going on, he’d put his money on Voillemin’s being involved. “Yes, Chief.”
     
    Rathe took himself out of the station as the clock stuck ten, ignoring Sohier’s wistful stare and the look of reproach from the junior adjunct. It was a clear day, and warm; by the time he’d reached the Pantheon, the winter-sun was well up, and he’d walked off the worst of his discontent. The square surrounding the temple was already busy, printers crying their wares from shopfronts and carts, and a fiddler scraped an accompaniment for a pair of singers between two of the larger shops while a leather-aproned apprentice hawked copies of their song. A good dozen horses were being walked in the shade of the square’s far side, sturdy beasts with travel-stained harness, journeymen chatting while their mistresses visited the money-changers in the Aretoneia. Within the Pantheon itself, the air was rich with incense, thin trails of smoke rising up through the central oculus from the banks of sand before the statues of the various gods. City merchants strolled in the gallery, skirts held up fastidiously against the dust that blew in from the square in spite of the best efforts of the apprentices; their journeymen and secretaries trailed them, tablets half-hidden in their hands, waiting to record the eventual agreements. In the shadowed center, a few well-dressed women strolled between the